Dreamscapes
by 0positiv
Summary: Methos dreams...but he is not alone in his head. (Crossover with the James Asher Vampire Books by Barbara Hambly, specifically borrowing the character of Don Simon Ysidro)


**AN:** So yeah, have a silly crossover with a fandom lots of people know and a fandom it seems like no one knows xD

I think this will mostly only make sense if you are at least a bit familiar with both fandoms but basically Methos is an Immortal who's been around a really long time (like about 5000 years long) and Simon is a vampire who's been around about 1/10 of that time and can get into peoples' dreams if he's met them before. Also he wouldn't be able to resist finding out more about a 5000 year old man, obviously ;)

* * *

Where had he seen the pale man before, sitting so calmly on his chair by the fire?

Surely a man in an expensive Italian suit had no business sitting on a chair in the middle of the desert?

In the middle of the desert and so many centuries in the past.

They didn't even have suits back then, just leather and furs and rough woven cloth.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Because this is the past and because he is Methos and master of this camp he grabs his sword and stalks around the fire. He would get his answers.

The pale man watches him with an eerie calm and stillness, not the least bit worried apparently by the sharp sword pointed at him.

"Answer me, spirit or demon or apparition. I, Methos the Horseman, demand it!"

The man tilts his head, like an inquisitive bird, and the scenery shifts, seamlessly, the way it always does in dreams.

And because this is a dream Methos is not surprised to suddenly be surrounded by shelves lined with books instead of tents and endless dunes.

Shakespeare and Company, back before Don died. And surely if Adam would just round another corner he could find his friend, could save him, somehow.

And still the pale man watches, now forgotten, leaning against a shelf, only visible out of the corner of one's eye.

Watches and waits and flicks through Methos' memories like one would look through a photo album.

"Stop it, get out of my head!"

Half in rage and half in desperation he swings his sword at the man. His sword passes through empty air, there is no one there any longer.

But he's standing on a bridge in Paris now, calmer, watching the Seine glitter in the sun, Mac's barge slowly rolling with the slight waves, Notre Dame an imposing silhouette behind it.

"They call it the City of Lights, yet is it not more beautiful in sunlight?"

The pale man is standing next to him, impeccably dressed arms leaning on the railing, gloved hands clasped loosely. The voice is quiet and nearly without inflection. Yet Methos thinks he heard a tiny bit of wistfulness in that one sentence.

"I'm not really into all that romance and poetry at the moment. Also I haven't been in Paris for years. Yourself?"

Apparently his sleeping mind found it perfectly acceptable to make small talk with strange dream invaders.

"Not for many years. I am no longer welcome there and it is not worth the fight it would cause."

Methos waited for the shrug he was sure would follow but it never came.

"So, I am sure there should be some rule about introducing yourself before you go and hijack someone's dreams…"

The stranger has a profile to rival Methos' own. Aquiline noses, people call them. Methos had always preferred the term "classic".

"I doubt any book on etiquette ever covered that subject."

A small smile moves the pale mouth, barely seen before it is gone again.

"And I can not say that I usually bother with introductions."

Their surroundings shift again, Watcher Headquarters this time, the archives where Adam Pierson had spent so much of his time.

The pale man caresses the spines of a few of the books.

"Your mind is an endlessly fascinating thing. So many centuries of memory. So much love, and pain, and loss, and happiness. And after it all you go on, stronger than you were before, and sane, while so many other would have succumbed to madness by now."

Methos takes the chronicle his guest had taken off a shelf out if the pale man's hands and puts it carefully back.

"Stop that, you'll mess up the filing system. And then Zoll will take both our heads, with her bare hands."

Another of those fleeting smiles. Pale lashes lowered over champagne coloured eyes for a second.

"I do apologize. She must be one formidable woman."

Methos sprawls in the nearest chair.

"She's a bloody witch, that one. No sense of humour, at all."

The other perches on the edge of the table.

"Or maybe simply not the same sense of humour as you?"

Methos shrugs and sips his beer that hadn't been there a moment before. But of course he'd have beer now, they are at Joe's after all. Can't drink beer at the archive, might leave stains on the books.

The bar is full of indistinct human forms, laughing and dancing and drinking. Joe is behind the bar, cleaning glasses. Should he introduce his creepy friend to the old Watcher? Maybe not. Dream or not he doubts he'd want his mortal friend anywhere near this one. For all his calmness and lack of overt aggression the pale stranger makes shivers run up Methos spine and raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

He's dangerous, that much is clear. Deadly dangerous and able to get into peoples' heads, never a good combination as far as Methos is concerned.

"It has been a pleasure talking to you, but I really think you should wake up now, Methos.."

A pounding on his door makes Methos sit up in bed and reach for his sword. He has carried a sense of dread over from his dreams, a wariness that makes him rip open his door, sword pointed at whoever is on the other side.

Amanda takes a step back and holds up her hands.

"Hey, will this be the way you'll always great me now? And I didn't even shout your name this time."

Methos groans and lowers his sword, his other hand rubbing his face.

"Only if you keep waking me up in the middle of the night. What is the great crisis this time, Amanda?"

He trots to the kitchen to make coffee. There was something he should remember…someone...but like most dreams it slips from his grasp and he gives up trying to hold on to it as he puts on a shirt and listens to Amanda ramble on about some immortal or another. The only thing that he remembers is a pair of yellow eyes staring into his own.


End file.
